Sunset Overdrive wears its inspirations on its sleeve, but sports enough solid action and good humor to be worth a play.

Insomniac's Sunset Overdrive ($59.99) is an open-world game set in Sunset City. There, you play as a downtrodden garbage collector for Fizzco, a corporation that launches an energy drink that ultimately turns its customers into mutants. It's up to you to fire wacky weapons, grind rails, and take down the evil, Umbrella-like Fizzco before the mutant-filled awesome-pocalypse becomes the regular, bad kind of apocalypse. Sunset Overdrive isn't very original, but the Xbox One exclusive delivers good, old-fashioned fun filled with fast-paced action, lots of rock and roll, and some good-natured jabs at video games. It's a solid, middle-class kind of game, just like its rail-grinding hero.

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Jet Grind Overdrive The best part of Sunset Overdrive is its high-flying method of travel. As in Sega's classic Jet Set Radio, you make the city your playground by grinding on rails, running on walls, and, once the ability's unlocked, dashing through the air. Chain these moves together and you won't ever touch the streets thanks to Sunset City's excellent design. Yellow rails, blue awnings, and countless car hoods, bushes, and cables keep you airborne. You can even glide on water. It takes time to get used to the controls, but once you get the hang of leaping, grinding, and flipping around all over the place, Sunset Overdrive becomes a satisfying romp, even when you're not battling mutant hordes.

Combat is the second-best part of the game. Typical of developer Insomniac's past games like Racket and Clank, the weapons are goofy fun. One lays down sprinklers filled with acid (great for crowd control), while another, called The Dude, fires bowling balls that take out swaths of enemies. Some of the guns feel similar (too many automatic rifles) and your first tool (a phallic, flame-based shotgun) never goes out of style, but you can amplify your arsenal with additional effects like an icy freeze stun or a fiery area-of-effect attack for some basic customization.

You can augment your character, too, with perks called Overdrives. Take out robots or mutants, or perform acrobatics like bounces, wall-runs and rail-grinds, and you'll gain badges that let you purchase upgrades. Overdrives boost your health, melee damage, or gun damage. It's not the most-exciting character development system, but it encourages you to keep the kills coming.

Class WarriorSunset Overdrive oozes style. Literally, at times. Blow mutants up and the gooey explosions spell "pop" and "blam." Characters drop pop-culture references like they're going out of fashion (and some have). And the robust customization options for your playable character offer an array of skin colors, hairstyles, denim jackets, life preservers, and silly hats to choose from. Or you can keep your guy (or gal) in his skivvies. You can then freely change into whatever outfit you want whenever you want by visiting an in-game vendor, so you're not locked into one look.

Unleash your mohawked/naked/cowboy-hat-wearing self onto the world and you'll encounter a good-hearted cast of rogues and outcasts, including groups of narcissistic texters, LARPers, and samurai scout troops. The banter between them and your avatar is often sharp, funny, and succinct. I usually roll my eyes at games that try too hard to make me laugh (looking at you, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel), but Sunset Overdrive is self-assured and doesn't need to try, even if your character winks at the fourth wall too often (I could've done without the shout-outs to NeoGAF). The story feels a bit disingenuous with its anti-consumer message (but be sure to buy the game's add-on DLC!), but the lighthearted tone and frenetic action carry it through to a crowd-pleading conclusion.

SundownerHowever, that conclusion comes sooner than other open-world games like Grand Theft Auto V or story-based games like Alien: Isolation. On the other hand, Sunset Overdrive's action begins to repeat itself early, so perhaps it could only sustain itself for eight to ten hours anyway. Nighttime tower-defense missions shake things up, but otherwise you spend the majority of your time performing fetch quests (get the robot dog, get the collectibles, get the sword, and so on). It's mostly uninteresting mission design thankfully broken up by entertaining cut scenes, some creative boss battles (a rollercoaster fight is a highlight), and the game's excellent rail-grinding system.

You can extend your playtime with the usual open-world collectibles strewn all over the city. If you really want to collect 100-plus of a bunch of tchotchkes, you can do that. Collect enough and you unlock more weapons and upgrades. There's also multiplayer, which has you join up with groups online to complete missions like dispatching mutants under a certain time limit or bombing balloons (also, under a certain time limit). The great thing about online play, however, is how easy it is to jump into: just find one of many phone booths dotted around the city, interact with it, and you're seamlessly matched with up to eight other players.

Tutorial messages pop-up from time to time, even when you're well into the campaign. It's annoying to be reminded of basic controls when the game is almost over, and there's no way to turn off the tutorial alerts. There's no way to speed up the camera, either. Well, there is a control for it in the options, but even with the speed all the way up, the camera still isn't fast enough to follow Sunset Overdrive's often frantic action. That's because the game runs at 30 frames per second, which is about 30 frames less than the ideal for action games. Then again, Sunset is also an open-world game, so there are bound to be compromises. The slow camera is no game breaker by any means, even though I sometimes had to accommodate the camera by slowing down my grinding and shooting.

Punky PasticheAs a pastiche of several different genres and games, Sunset Overdrive succeeds in some areas and stumbles in others. Grinding along railways and communications wires then leaping into a battle against armed robots can be exhilarating, at least until the next humdrum open-world fetch mission. Other design and technical issues nag at Sunset Overdrive, but they're not bad enough to overlook this solid new IP. Punk rockers and jet-set grinders will definitely want to give Sunset City a visit, if only for a brief time.

About the Author

Timothy Torres is a Junior Analyst on PCMag's consumer electronics team. He covers wearables, digital home, and various cool gadgets including the occasional video game. He has written all manner of copy for Computer Shopper, The Jersey Journal, Radio One, Random House, and 2D-X. Before entering the tech world, he attended New York University and w... See Full Bio

Sunset Overdrive (for Xbox One)...

Sunset Overdrive (for Xbox One)

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